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Trips
Home-educators can group together to participate in schools events or educational activities at, for example, museums, galleries etc.. These trips are usually organised on the SLHE email group and/or home-ed facebook groups. The SLHE email group is for organising current events. Please remember to comment on whether you are home-educating or not when applying to join. Facebook groups for organising group trips in the London area: HE What's On Where! (HE Wow!) . You'll need to message one of the admins, or look out for a message from one of them in your 'others' folder, to confirm that you are a real person and not a spammer. You can also email them on members@hewow.co.uk . You must be currently home-educating at least one child aged 5+ to join. HE - Pop! is a sister group for under-5s : HEPoP! Membership Criteria: - Home Educators - at least one child in the family under 5 years - local to Surrey & London (bordering this area) A friendly community of families home educating their under 5's; whether they follow an autonomous, semi-structured or more structured curriculum. We share events, workshops, exhibitions, classes, days out, groups, learning resources, news and anything that may be of interest to our community. It is not a page to promote business services, if you are not a home educator and this is the nature of your interest you will be removed from the members list. Educational Trips - special "Schools" sessions Here are some examples of trips and workshops : * * Tour of the House of Commons * Egyptians workshop at Bromley Museum * Children in Victorian times at Coram Fields * Japanese Culture at the Japanese Embassy * Tour of the Royal Albert Hall * Colour and Dye at the RI * HE trip to Legoland (with workshop) * History of Transport at the London Transport Museum * Animation at the BFI * Kew Gardens * A History of London at the Museum of London * Natural History Museum workshops and films * * Royal Courts of Justice Educational Workshops: The kids do a mock trial and there is a selection of themes and historical settings or modern era. We did Suffragettes for teenagers and Victorian children for KS2. They are quite pricey - I think they worked out at around £8 each - but you get a lot for it; a full tour of the Royal Courts of Justice, lots of explanation of how the court works, and some historical background for the cases. The kids all seemed to enjoy it, though as with many things I think the content was pitched at the lower end of the age range suggested, so if in doubt, I'd go up an age group. For anyone thinking of organising one of these, a few cautions: ** The kids really do have to be quiet when doing the tour of the Courts, as there are real cases going on. For the ks2 group it was quite difficult to get some of the more high-spirited members of the group to walk around quietly and we had a number of complaints. If I did this again I might ask parents of young children to walk right next to their kids on the tour. ** No taking photographs in the Royal Courts of Justice, and that doesn't just mean in the public areas - it also means no photos of your kids while they are dressed up in judges' wigs looking cute in the courtroom. Make sure you get clarification on charges for spectating parents and siblings as we had some confusion. ** The mock trials are not great dramatic productions but simply ways to get the children involved. Every child has a part and reads from a script, which generally they seemed to enjoy. It can turn into quite a lot of work for the organiser if you get too caught up in worries over casting! * Bank of England Museum This is free :-) It gets booked up well in advance. We did the ks3/4 workshop and it was probably not as much fun as the ks2 workshop which another group did. The museum was pretty good and everyone liked holding a gold ingot and hearing about forgeries, but I think a lot of it depends on how animated your presenter is. * The Wallace Collection -some great workshops including French language and art. One family's highlights: * Royal Albert Hall tour/workshop, * mud larking at greenwich, * Egyptian workshop at horniman, * Chislehurst cave tour. * Royal Institute workshops: Fantastic science workshop with an excellent teacher who let the kids play with liquid nitrogen and give each other rides on his hovercraft. These attractions offer group bookings: * * Hampton court palace, * British museum * Temporary exhibitions at british museum, * Redwings equine sanctuary, * London zoo, * Visiting the police stables, * Listening to favourite authors speak about their work, Comments from parents "We have done many workshops and activities in our time. The best were always those that the subject was of particular interest to my kids. The downside of these kind of arrangements is that they are always pitched at the lower end of ability and knowledge. I therefore find them great for trying something new to see if it interests them but not so good if it's something they are very interested in already and know quite a lot about." ""I am more inclined to visit places as a family (or with 1 or other child) if its something they are especially interested in, this way they get more out of the visits. " Another parent's comments: We attend at least a workshop/event every fortnight so I'm bound to leave many favourites out. The few that I can recollect are: * All promenade performances esp the elaborate event on herbs and fairies attended at the southbank a while back; * the good neighbour at the battersea arts centre; * all the ones at the barbican etc. * All interactive Music sessions: ** the gamelan workshop at the Southbank, ** the Royal College of Music classical music series (more coming next year); ** the Pry proms in the RFH (not organised by homeedders); ** etc * Making things workshops ** the clay workshop at the V and A; ** chocolate museum workshop ** architectural one at RFH ** various ones at Somerset House. My academic side is in love with * the Royal Institution lectures; * the chemistry lab workshops; * the sessions at the Brit Museum; * science shows at the science museum; * etc Loved the Puppetry one at Wilton's music hall and to some extent, the St Paul's one because it tired the kids out (all those steps!) but other visitors were probably not too pleased as they couldn't hear themselves think in the Whispering gallery. * Loved all the Brit Lib series * Did some good workshops at Legoland * Chessington and similar others (the kids liked the rides). * The lady at the water workshop in Epping Forest was good * the guy at the poo factory in Slough was good with the kids. * The Southwark recycling session was also good * Liked some shows at the Centre of the Cell... but now a tad repetitive and boring. * Not too keen on the science museum sleepover but we're doing the British Museum Ming sleepover scheduled for next month. West End Shows * We have seen on HE tickets: Matilda, lion king, horrible histories, charlie and the chocolate factory, several ballets and just recently we saw la boheme at the royal opera house. These type of big shows do fill up a long time in advance so you do need to be prepared to wait for tickets and book and pay up to a year in advance. You do sometimes need to be a bit pushy but if they are offering reduced prices for schools its dicriminatory not to offer the same to home ed kids. I tend to say i want to book educational tickets and they do often want a group. We did not enjoy charlie and the chocolate factory and were very disappointed after all the hype. We have also seen lots of smaller theatre productions where they are usually happier to allow single families or small groups. Must mention here the free theatre at the scoop. They have some really great stuff on and its all free! Other ideas for educational days out: FREE spontaneous days out with HE friends at * The Science Museum * The National History Museum * The V&A * Morden City Farm * Vauxhall City Farm * The Saatchi Gallery * The Tate Modern (access code for the 'secret' garden to the left of the gallery is 'blossom') * The BFI * Museum of London * Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood * Hours of amusement in the fountains at Somerset House We have had great fun on the various hunts around london (eggs elephants benches) Another tip for a cheap day out? Go to Covent Garden, watch a busking act, then buy a (rather overpriced) coffee & juice at the cafe downstairs and watch professional musicians & opera singers 'busk' while you sip My son loves the Crystal, which is free for home educating families, but we did have to show proof. We cycle to the O2, take the Emirates Air Line (cable car) and we're there. With bicycles in the cabin, you usually don't have to share it with other people.